


Until the Day Break

by Rubynye



Category: DC Comics
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-14
Updated: 2010-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:30:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce and Harvey, before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until the Day Break

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Petra LeMaitre](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Petra+LeMaitre).



> Written For: [](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/profile)[**petronelle**](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/), because. *big smile*  
> Pairing [and Summary]: Bruce/Harvey, before.  
> Based On: Two-Face's origin story [as seen here](http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/839253.html).  
> Thanks to: [](http://sageness.livejournal.com/profile)[**sageness**](http://sageness.livejournal.com/), [](http://maelithil.livejournal.com/profile)[**maelithil**](http://maelithil.livejournal.com/) and [](http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/profile)[**brown_betty**](http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/) for audiencing  
> Disclaimer: These characters belong to DC Comics, not me.   
> Title From: _Song of Solomon _2:17; given me by [](http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/profile)[**brown_betty**](http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/)

Title: Until the Day Break  
Fandom: DC Comics  
Rating: PG-15

 

Bruce claws his way up out of sleep, propelled by a growing unease, an awareness of disquiet for once not his own. It's not some nightmare of his, half-remembered, that drives him up through heavy layers of unconsciousness; he remembers all of his nightmares, blood black by moonlight, falling pearls. It's danger nearby that needs his attention, danger to someone he loves.

Bruce is awake. Gotham's cloudy sky reflects streetlight through the open window. Beside him, Harvey is thrashing and sweating, mired in violent REM, eyes rolling beneath their lids.

Bruce shoves himself upright. Harvey might hurt himself. He could hold him still, but Harvey would struggle. He could call him, but Harvey might not hear. He could...

He needs to do something.

"Harvey." Bruce lifts his hand, deliberates, thinks of Leslie, and sets it on Harvey's hot forehead as lightly as he can. "Harvey, wake up." It's difficult to keep it there, as Harvey thrashes side to side, but Bruce doesn't dare use any pressure that would feel like restraint. "Harvey. You're dreaming. Wake up."

Harvey shudders and stills, and opens cloudy blue eyes below Bruce's hand. "Oh." He's breathless, blinking in confusion, as he reaches up to lay his hand on Bruce's. "Oh. I dreamed--- my father was--- you are." He takes a long, shuddery breath, and Bruce allows himself to watch Harvey's broad chest fill and rise, before pulling the blanket up over him. It's really too late in the year to have left the window open. "Bruce. Hi."

And Harvey smiles.

So Bruce smiles back.

Harvey keeps smiling, the moment almost long enough to inhabit, before his forehead wrinkles under Bruce's palm, before he frowns. "How bad was it?"

Bruce smiles wider and doesn't take a deeper breath as he steels himself to the lie. "You looked---" He waves his other hand with careful negligence. "Cranky. Bad dream?"

Harvey smiles again, smaller, lopsided and embarrassed. "You could say that." He squeezes Bruce's hand, once, and lets go, so Bruce lifts his hand away. "What time is it?"

"One twenty-four." They began dinner seven hours and eighteen minutes earlier. "Or so." They gave up pretending they weren't going to bed six hours and thirty-nine minutes ago. Harvey fell asleep, damp and peaceful and exhausted, three hours and six minutes after that. Bruce decides a shrug would be fitting, and is pleased to see Harvey's eyes darken a little as they follow the movement of his shoulder. He watched Harvey sleep for forty-nine minutes before he himself dozed off.

Harvey smiles a little more evenly, but then he sits up as well. "I should've left two hours ago. I told Gilda I'd be at the office, but..." Bruce is saved from deciding whether to look disappointed or to joke by Harvey's turn away from him, towards the interleaved pile of their clothes.

So all Bruce says is, "I know."

"I." Harvey hangs his head, and Bruce watches the strong line of his neck as he laughs humorlessly. "I love her. I'm going to marry her. I shouldn't be having---"

"I know," Bruce says again. Perhaps futilely.

Perhaps not. Harvey's shoulders straighten, and when he looks back over his shoulder half his face is limned in yellow light and his smile is exactly the same as in high school. "Bruce."

Bruce widens his eyes. Harvey's smile becomes a grin, and he twists around for a kiss. "I should've _been_ at the office," he says, but he takes another kiss, a longer one, his pulse warm beneath Bruce's fingers, before he backs away. "I have to go."

Bruce flops down, choosing mild disappointment to display. "It's cold out there."

Harvey laughs and swings his legs out of the bed. "If the worst thing I face as an ADA is a little cold air, I'll be lucky." When Bruce sprawls invitingly Harvey's eyes rove him slowly, but he still stands and backs away. "I'll try to make it for lunch Tuesday, all right?"

"Of course you'll make it." Bruce stretches with frivolity he doesn't feel, and wishes he could weight Harvey back into the bed. "What could be more important than lunch with an old friend?"

"Doing my _job_, Bruce." Harvey's voice is mildly chiding, but there's a laugh in it. "See you then?"

Within his head, Bruce rearranges his next three evenings to spare at least an hour each for surveillance on Harvey's apartment. It will be good practice. On his face, he smiles lazily. "See you then."


End file.
